Thursday, March 01, 2007

If it's Thursday...

What a rewarding time at work today. Two Kindergarten classes made their first official visit to the school library and, as teacher-librarian, I gave them a compressed version of all the activities I've been doing with the Stage 1 classes (Years 1 and 2). The topic for the term is "Nursery Rhymes", so we did "Little Miss Muffet" (starring my battery-operated, black, hairy Bungee Spider - he drops down from his web and crawls back up again!), and "Hey, Diddle Diddle" (featuring my handmade cardboard finger puppets).

We followed up with a reading of The Cat in the Hat, because Kindergarten will be otherwise engaged tomorrow afternoon during the time assigned for the national read-aloud.

This afternoon, as school finished and the playground filled with departing children and parents, several of my little first-time visitors returned, cloth library bag slung over a shoulder, hand inside Mum's or Dad's hand, to wave goodbye to me at the library door. Ten minutes later, when I was in the back office, I heard the pitter patter of little feet. Another first-time library patron had entered to announce, "I just needed to say 'Goodbye'. Goodbye!" And back out he went, the way he'd come. So cute! I wonder if I've made as big an impression on these young lives as my first teacher-librarian, the wonderful Janette McKenny, later Janette Mercer (when she married my Year 4 teacher, Milton Mercer!) did for me in 1967?

Tonight, the Sydney Star Trek Meetup Group had its second monthly midweek coffee shop meeting. Another rewarding experience. I'm looking forward to these Meetups very much. I'm in the city every Thursday night, anyway, and it's nice to have a regular group to commune with after a big shop-up at Galaxy Bookshop. Our next meeting, we return to Taronga Park Zoo.

Subscribe to "Have Phaser"

About me

Otherwise known as "Therin of Andor", Ian McLean has had an active association with "Star Trek" and science fiction media fandom in Australia since 1980. Before then he was an avid fan of the "Batman" TV series (60s) and the Australian TV classic, "Number 96" (70s).